Chapter 33: Arcane Cultivation

Chapter 33: Chapter 33: Arcane Cultivation

One month later.

Aeon finally stepped out of the heavy obsidian doors of the tower after a full, uninterrupted month of intense reading and deep concept comprehension.

He had spent the entire month dissecting the primordial theories of all three foundational paths, not limiting his focus to just the magic track.

Backed by his Infinite Comprehension, he had successfully engineered the perfect, hyper-optimized ways to cultivate through every single mortal rank of each path. Now, it was finally time to put those advanced theories into direct, explosive action.

With a quiet thought, Aeon dissolved the spatial framework of the Archive world, instantly reappearing deep within the familiar, shimmering expanse of the golden ocean world.

He dropped smoothly into a cross-legged meditative stance on top of the liquid plane and closed his eyes.

When it came to configuring his upcoming Arcane foundation, Aeon had decided to throw away the standard rules completely. Instead of merely engraving better, high-tier runes directly into a standard cosmic ring structure, he was going to take the entire concept to a completely different level, executing his vision step by step.

"Let’s first begin with the heart core itself, refining its boundaries exactly like I refined my dantian core," Aeon murmured to himself, initiating the training process as he began to absorb the surrounding cosmic energy.

The dense, ambient energy in the atmosphere rushed toward his position, sinking cleanly straight into his skin pores and navigating his internal meridian networks to converge around his heart.

Aeon didn’t need to waste time re-carving or reconstructing his four custom runes from scratch. Because his initial body-tempering cycle had permanently hard-coded them into his biology, the sub-runes were already systematically scattered across his entire anatomy.

Floating in a silent, rapid orbit directly around his internal heart core were the exact copies of the four foundational runes. Although they were merely mirrored duplicates and not the primary master glyphs anchoring his lower dantian, they functioned with identical, perfect efficiency.

Aeon focused his intent and activated the localized matrix. The Rune of Absolute Destruction flared instantly, feeding on the incoming cosmic energy as it violently atomized his raw heart core into absolute dust.

In the exact same millisecond, the Rune of Cosmic Genesis triggered its function, drawing upon the immense vitality of the domain to recreate a brand-new, vastly sturdier, and more refined heart core.

The Rune of Infinite Evolution made sure to automated the loop, forcing the apocalyptic destruction-and-creation process to repeat over and over again, designed to run until Aeon chose to stop or his stats reached the definitive maximum threshold of the Mortal Realm.

Naturally, Aeon was instantly plunged into a state of non stop, white-hot physical agony, forcing him to grit his teeth to hold back a desperate urge to scream.

Backed by his highly refined nervous system and hyper-accelerated cognition, he was fully capable of processing the precise sensation of his core being pulverized every single millisecond.

Unsurprisingly, his physical heart tissue itself didn’t sustain a single shred of actual structural damage during the process. Because his flesh had already successfully weathered millions of destruction cycles during his Warrior Path training, his internal organs were already as unyielding and tough as a cluster of compressed stars.

"Aurrrrghh!" Aeon growled through his clenched teeth.

Refusing to let the pain slow down his progression, he immediately activated one of his physiques ability, [Infinite Void Glutton], to draw the golden ocean directly into the refinement cycle to ease and quicken the process.

Whooosh!

Massive, purple-and-black shadow constructs erupted into the space around him, their giant maws lined with rows of glowing, white razor-sharp teeth as they began bottomlessly devouring the golden water of the Ocean of Eternal Genesis.

Aeon felt the brutal trauma of the atomization process ease instantly, though the sheer volume of origin life essence entering his pathways accelerated the velocity of the loops exponentially.

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Two months later.

Aeon remained sitting cross-legged over the golden plane, vibrant, multi-colored lights of pure conceptual energy continuously cascading into his physical body.

His long, cosmic-tipped hair drifted softly through the air, and his entire frame radiated a majestic, shifting spectrum of power that illuminated the sea for miles.

After a final tense beat, Aeon snapped his eyes wide open, brilliant stars shimmering directly within his cosmic nebula-like pupils. With a sharp mental command, he deactivated his active runic matrices and dissolved the shadow maws of the Infinite Void Glutton. He had finally pushed his internal heart core to the absolute, unmovable peak of the Mortal Realm.

"Huuuh... man, that was truly something else," Aeon sighed in profound relief, rolling his shoulders as the heavy energy pressure receded.

"I seriously need to prioritize unlocking a permanent pain-resistance ability. Luckily, thanks to the absolute reinforcement my body went through during my initial Warrior Path refinement, the pain and trauma was far more manageable this time, but having a core atomized inside your chest is still definitely not a simple pain."

He cracked his neck, a faint smile returning to his lips. "Sadly, this is merely the beginning of the real work. But first, let’s eat something."

With a simple, elegant flick of his wrist, Aeon summoned a wide wooden table packed with a fresh, steaming spread of delicious, nutrient-dense dishes.

Moving with efficient speed, he completely cleared the entire table within twenty minutes, thoroughly restoring his depleted stamina.

Once finished, Aeon dismissed the table with a thought, instantly centering his focus to plunge straight back into the grind.

He closed his eyes, utilizing his internal inspection technique to gaze deep into the spatial void of his chest where his heart core resided.

And as expected, the sight that greeted his awareness was staggering. Occupying the center of his upper space was a colossal, swirling black hole core that slightly warped the surrounding space with its sheer density. But there was a striking difference between this core and his lower dantian core.

[N/A: Heart core: Archane path, Dantian core: Warrior path, Soul core: Spiritual path]

Instead of witnessing nothing but the standard, deep black and purple energy signature of the Void, this newly refined core held a swirling, breathtaking spectrum of multiple distinct colors.

Aeon immediately deduced the reason. These were the unmasked primordial energies flowing directly from his seventeen individual affinities.

"Before my evolution, these specific elements weren’t Infinite-rank unlike the Void," Aeon murmured, tracing the swirling streams of colored energy. "But now, every single one of them has successfully ascended to the Infinite-rank."

He then spent 10 minutes carefully surveying the pathways, verifying that there were no hidden instabilities or structural fractures within the mutated heart core.

Satisfied with the survey, Aeon exited his internal space and opened his eyes.

"Alright. Next step," Aeon declared, a clever, devilish smirk playing on his lips.

"Normally, standard Arcane cultivators will simply manifest a series of simple cosmic rings around their core, encrypting them with basic runes and magic circles.

But I am going to completely redefine the system. I’m going to create an actual planetary ring structure—a literal, solid planet complete with its own revolving ring. Hihihi."

He laughed softly to himself, deeply amused by the sheer audacity of his blueprint. Of course, it was highly probable that a few legendary geniuses in cosmic history had thought of trying a similar method, but absolutely no one commanded the unique resources he held, or the structural patterns he came up with.

No cultivators or being did possess an Infinite Talent that completely erased all universal restrictions and bottleneck gates, nor did they hold a boundless pocket universe of resources.

He took a deep breath, mapping out the precise operational steps. "If we look at the heart core as a centralized star system, I will manifest massive planetary rings directly around its gravity. Then, I will encrypt the structure using pure Origin Runes taught to me directly by the spirits of my affinities.

These runes share absolutely nothing with the common, knocked-out runes used by cultivators in this mortal realm or any other realm. These are the actual, unadulterated origin concepts of the elements themselves. And that will be my foundation."

He narrowed his eyes, tracking the long-term progression. "Any extra stuff regarding traditional magic circles can be easily inscribed into the layout later. Furthermore, I won’t just restrict these origin runes to the planetary ring alone. I will engrave them across my entire body, and my lower dantian core—exactly like the layout I used for the four custom runes during my initial body refinement."

Concluding his internal calculation, Aeon closed his eyes and initiated the sequence.

He reactivated his Infinite Void Glutton ability, drawing a thick current of the golden sea upward to form a dense cocoon around his posture.

Simultaneously, his consciousness opened wide, drawing a massive influx of pure ambient cosmic energy from the atmosphere alongside the raw, primordial energies from his sixteen affinities.

The moment the overwhelming torrent of contrasting energies flooded into his chest, Aeon locked down his control, manipulating the distinct forces to converge directly around his heart core.

Once the massive reservoir of power was centered, he began compressing the energies with his ironclad will, refusing to let a single spark of energy escape the perimeter.

He pushed the compression process relentlessly, molding the highly dense energy fields into the precise shape of a wide, structural circle with a perfectly revolving ring running through its center.

But he didn’t stop there. Instead of allowing the compressed energy to expand outward into a large framework, he forced the entire system to compress down until it was merely the size of a human palm.

Rather than remaining a volatile mass of condensed energy, the localized space fractured and stabilized, transforming into a distinct, autonomous core that possessed its own isolated spatial dimensions inside his chest.

Aeon then ignited his four custom runes, forcing the palm-sized matrix to undergo the rapid destruction-and-creation loop.

BOOOM!

The compressed planetary ring was instantly atomized, only to be flawlessly re-synthesized a millisecond later by the Rune of Cosmic Genesis.

The hyper-accelerated cycle continued non-stop for months, and fortunately for Aeon, because his body was already fully refined, the planetary compression process didn’t inflict a single shred of physical pain.

After six continuous months of internal time, the tiny, palm-sized planetary ring had successfully expanded, stabilizing into a massive, breathtaking celestial planet that radiated with an incandescent spectrum of colored energies.

Sadly, when he tried to push the compression further to make it match the colossal size of his bkack hole-like core, he encountered an unyielding spatial barrier—it was structurally impossible to grow it any larger for now.

"That’s completely fine," Aeon murmured, examining the floating world inside his chest. "This planetary ring already functions as a massive, near-endless storage space that can passively absorb and compress raw energy. Now, for the final step. Encrypting the origin runes."

Focusing his awareness entirely onto the next phase of the plan, Aeon drew another massive wave of primordial elemental energies toward his heart core.

But instead of letting the energies enter the core or the new planet, he used his will to partition the power into sixteen separate, highly compressed sections.

Manifesting his conceptual Rune Chisel, he began to carve away at the energy blocks with meticulous precision, engraving them into the exact, ancient Origin Runes provided by his affinity spirits.

Following twelve consecutive hours of non-stop, hyper-focused carving, he successfully finalized the sixteen affinity runes. Moving with absolute control, Aeon guided the completed runes straight into his heart core, embedding all sixteen origin concepts directly into the center of his inner space.

The exact millisecond they settled into the core’s gravity, the sixteen master runes vibrated with a powerful frequency, immediately casting out countless microscopic, exact duplicates of themselves.

The sea of sub-runes migrated through his internal pathways; some locked themselves into the architecture of his new planet and its ring, others traveled down to embed themselves across his lower dantian core, and the rest systematically mapped themselves all over his physical body.

For a brief, dazzling moment, his visible skin flared with the brilliant, complex patterns of the sixteen affinities before the glowing text receded back beneath his pores.

Instantly, the very second the origin runes finalized their connection to his planetary ring, a profound sensation washed over his consciousness.

He felt a deep, unshakeable, and absolute connection to the laws of nature. Aeon snapped his eyes open, his entire body violently radiating a majestic spectrum of multi-colored energy that illuminated the night sky.

"Wow... this incredible feeling... is this what true magic is supposed to feel like?" Aeon exclaimed aloud, his voice full of genuine wonder and surprise at the transformation. "It feels completely effortless as simple and natural as breathing or shifting raw energy around."

He had read through multiple historical journals detailing how ordinary noble geniuses felt the exact second they successfully formed their first primitive cosmic ring and unlocked access to standard magic. They always described it as a heavy, exhausting mental strain to manipulate elements. But the sensation humming through Aeon’s new foundation was entirely magnificent, smooth, and absolute.

Centering his consciousness, Aeon mentally commanded his system, eager to review his status.

’System, Status.’

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